Summer update

Lots of changes on our end! I don't even know if I had mentioned before. We sold our house a couple of months ago and moved to an apartment. We bought a house, a condo actually, but it's still being build. We are supposed to move in December/January. It's twice as big as our old house and I am also excited about living in a brand new place, after having to repair something every freaking week in the old house.

Parker still wakes up once during the night for food, usually around 11 pm. It's not too bad as we don't go to sleep until midnight, usually. But I know he is not hungry at that time, as he then can last until 7 am. I don't want him to get used to eating just because, but it may be too late for that.

Also, P stopped falling asleep on his own and is not sleeping through he night yet. Ever since he started crawling, he would get on all four in the middle of the night and cry. We would then have to help him to laying down position. Then he started pulling up on his feet and got used to my assistance. So now he usually wakes up at night at least once (in addition to the 11 pm feeding) and cries. On top of that, he has been sick lately and is now teething (has three teeth already but I think more are coming as he is putting his hands in his mouths more than ever). So now I actually pick him up and rock him to sleep at night! I feel like we are back to when he was 6 months. Except he now is more stubborn. I will rock him almost to sleep and then put him down. He is almost asleep and then suddenly gets up and smiles. :) During naps it's no problem, he will close his eyes and fall asleep. But at night he keeps fighting and getting up. Sometimes it takes me almost an hour before he falls asleep. When I tired to rock him to sound asleep, he would wake up several times at night and want to be rocked. So I know try to put him to his crib "drowsy but awake" as they say. I am not terribly worried, I know he will stop this eventually but it would be nice to have 6-7 continuous hours of sleep again. All my friends are doing some type of cry it out method of sleep training but I really don't believe it's necessary (unless you need/want to speed the process, and I don't think it's worth the crying) so it's hard to talk to anyone about that...

Now food. We give P mostly jar food and some little cereal for finger food. He is really lazy about feeding himself (which is good on other hand because I don't have to worry about him eating dirt and other trash off the floor); he can hold his own bottle but that's about it. Even with the little cheerios he can hardly make it to his mouth! Again, I am not worried much but I would like to start feeding him some "real" food. I feel like he is getting bored with the jar food. But how do you find the time? We usually eat at 9 or 10, after P goes to bed, which happens around 7-8. It would be so great to have family dinners, though!

P also pulls up to everything and he tries to stand without holding on to anything now. He can stand holding on with one hand pretty well already. He cruises along everything very comfortably too. He can also somehow get on top of boxes that are half his height! I was so amazed! (We still have some unpacked boxes laying around).

Parker also started having separation/attachment issues. Man, it's starting to be annoying! He doesn't even want to go to his Daddy when I am around. :(

I can't wait till August! We are going to the Outer Banks of North Carlina with our friends who have a baby girl 3 months younger than P. It's going to be fun!

P is crawling!!!

Parker started crawling today! At 8 months 2 weeks and 3 days old! In the morning, Marc put him on the carpet in the corner of his room and called his name from the other side. P didn't want to do his tummy crawl, I guess he no longer thought it was efficient enough, but didn't know how to coordinate his arms and legs just yet. He got frustrated and started crying. But then later on, while with my sister, he carefully made a few steps and... now he is crawling like a pro! I will post a video when I figure out how. :)

Tooth #2

Tooth #2 has officially made an appearance today, that is May 18th. :)

8 months - Sleep regression?

Parker made his first step crawling (on all four, tummy off the floor) in the walk-in master closet of our new condo model on Saturday, May 5. :) Mommy was so proud! She took two videos! This also marked the beginning of a week of sleepless nights, for both, Parker and me. His poor little body wanted to practice crawling even in his sleep, so he not only had a really hard time falling asleep (crawling all over the crib, unable to lay still) but also would wake up several times a night on all four, totally freaked out. I had to pick him up, calm him down, and rock him back to sleep in the glider. This coincided with a growth spurt, so he wanted to eat pretty much every time he woke up. We both weren't getting much rest but I did enjoy snuggling with him so much during this time! He sleeps much better now (last night was second night when he didn't get on all four even once) and I already miss our cuddling time.

After a week and a half practicing he still is not crawling, really, but he is very comfortably standing on all four and rocking back and fort. He can also lift his arm to grab a toy, as well as go from laying on his back to sitting up (I witnessed this first time this morning!) He hasn't figured out the right hand left leg idea yet, though.

The same day, Sat, May 5, Parker also started holding his bottle when drinking his formula and water. He still doesn't do it all the time today and prefers when we hold his bottle. But he is getting better every day.

Parker is also slowly learning to pick up small pieces of food and put them in his mouth. He is having trouble getting the pieces off the flat surface of the high chair's tray but does much better when I hand him a piece. He then manages to put it in his mouth most of the times.

It's absolutely fascinating to watch him learn new things every day, literally. I feel that our lives were so empty before he came about.

The first tooth

My baby boy has his first tooth! At almost 8 months (4 days short), after four months of drooling. :) His first little tooth is not very visible yet, but you can feel how sharp it is very well.

I have been slacking off with the writing, I know. A lot has been happening. We sold our house, bought another and are waiting for it to be built. My mom is back home, my sister took her place caring for Parker.We went for a two weeks vacation (well, it wasn't really a vacation as I was working 90% of the time) at the beach. So yeah, we have been busy.

A little update on Parker.

1. He continues to grow. He is very "long and lean". :) At less than 8 months he wears size 12-18 months.
2. He is starting to take longer day naps. While he used to sleep up to 45 minutes, his standard now is 1-1.5 hour.
3. He still sleeps through the night, most of the nights. His last three (before last night) were a bit worse as he was waking up a lot but I think it was due to teething.
4. He loves his solids! Eats fruit, vegetables, rice cereal and oatmeal. He still drinks a decent amount of formula, although we tried to feed him solids only (during the day) and he did great. Only later I read that he should still be drinking more formula and went back.
5. He is not crawling on all four yet but he is very efficient in the "army crawl". He can et wherever he wants that way, and get there fast!
6. He started sleeping on his tummy.
7. He snuggles more.
8. He is still not on a schedule. Sleeps till 5 or 6 or 7 am (usually falls back asleep when get his paci at 5 am) and goes back to sleep around 8 or 9. Sometimes he will fall asleep in the big bed with us after his morning bottle. He stays awake for 2-3 hours at the time and has a bottle ever 3 hours or so. Solids in between.
9. He is a very happy baby, smiles all the time and has a great sense of humor.
10. He loves goofing out with daddy and snuggle with mommy.
11. He is my life.

Priceless donation

I donated my frozen breast milk yesterday. And now I am sad. It's like a part of me that belongs to my baby was given away, lost. I know the baby who got it will benefit from it. But I am still upset that I let my mom stop me from giving it to Parker. Maybe it would have prevented his UTIs! I read in many sources that breastfeeding is the main weapon against those early UTIs. I am still upset with my mom. I told her yesterday that the lady picked up my milk for her baby. I don't think my mom realizes how precious breast milk is and how very very beneficial it is to the babies! My older sister and I were both on formula from the first day, and doctors back then never mentioned that breast milk is so beneficial. So when I encountered breastfeeding trouble, my mom's natural advice was formula. Now, after living with her for 5 months, I know that she says stuff before she even thinks, and that only when pushed, she will re-think and sometimes even change her mind (although she won't admit it). But back in October, I just followed her advice, without much questioning. So when she suggested we stop giving Parker my breast milk because it may cause his fussiness, I just did. And I was too scared to bring up giving him my milk again. Now I know that it was stupid, I shouldn't have felt that way. But it's too late, my milk is gone.

I told my mom yesterday that a woman will be coming to pick up my milk. I was hoping she will realize that breast milk is not just another way of feeding a baby. That women give their babies someone else milk because of how beneficial it is. Why did I not give my milk to my baby? I still don't know. :( I feel stupid for giving it away. Parker is not allergic to the milk, we know it. And now it would have been beneficial to him just as much as any other time. UGH! I have to stop thinking about it because I am getting upset with myself!

Almost 6 months: Sleeping through the night

Parker is almost 6 months (three days short). Everything is falling into place. He started falling asleep in his crib a few weeks ago and now this is pretty much the only way he falls asleep, even for naps during the day (actually during the day it takes him shorter to fall asleep, for some reason). And he now is starting to sleep long stretches of time too! He slept from 7 to midnight on Sat night, ate, and then slept until 5.50 am! He stirred and called for a pacifier a few times but went right back to sleep. Last night he slept from 8.30 till 2.45, ate, and then woke up 5.45. And I only had to give him his monius (paci) once, right when we went to bed and made some noise. My baby is sleeping through the night! And we didn't have to sleep train him!

That's right, after all this talk, we decided not to sleep train P. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to letting him cry at all, not even talking about leaving him to cry for several minutes! We didn't have to do it, though. I got inspired by some website and started thinking why is he waking up. We figured that it was because he got used to falling asleep with a bottle. And we were right! Once he learned to fall asleep w/o the bottle, he started sleeping longer periods of time, pretty much instantaneously. We would give him milk but when we saw that he was drifting off, we would take it away. He would wake back up and we would give him the bottle back until he was done. Then we would rock him to sleep. It was a bit hard the first two days, as he wouldn't fall asleep immediately, we had to rock him for 20-30 minutes at the time. But now he falls asleep really quickly and doesn't wake up at night but a couple of times!!